From the dark end of the street -- To the bright side of the road -- We`ll be lovers once again on the -- Bright side of the road

I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice.

My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that`s what I`m doing.

I`m very lucky, I`m happy with life because my experiences led me to do what I had to do. I don`t have any regrets whatsoever.

I just need somewhere to dump all my negativity.

I`ve never felt like I was born with a silver spoon at all, although I`ve felt like howling at the moon a lot of times!

Skiffle was a name that was attached to what was, in essence, American folk music with a beat.

The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.

Hearing the blues changed my life.

I educated myself. To me, school was boring.

Every performance is different. That`s the beauty of it.

When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration.

When I started you were more in touch with the people you were playing to. There wasn`t the distance or the separation that there is now.

I write songs. Then, I record them. And, later, maybe I perform them on stage. That`s what I do. That`s my job. Simple.

If it`s what you do and you can do it, then you do it.

I don`t think nostalgia has to be negative.

You take stuff from different places, and sometimes you stick a line in because it rhymes, not because it makes sense.

It was really strange for me when I started to play concerts in America where the audiences were all sitting down.

Music is spiritual. The music business is not.

I always record far more than I can use. There`s probably twice as much recorded as comes out.

These days politics, religion, media seem to get all mixed up. Television became the new religion a long time back and the media has taken over.

You`ve got to separate the singer and the songs.

As a developing musician, skiffle became a platform for me to start playing music.

The future is keeping you out of the present time.

I never paid attention to what was contemporary or what was commercial, it didn`t mean anything to me.

I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good.

If you`re a pop singer, you don`t need to evolve. You just get a set together, have some hit songs and play them over and over.

A famous person to themselves, they don`t get up in the morning and think, I`m famous. I`m not famous to me. Famous is a perception.

I don`t feel comfortable doing interviews. My profession is music, and writing songs. That`s what I do. I like to do it, but I hate to talk about it.

I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn`t there before that.

I went back to Belfast and started a club, the Maritime. No one had thought about doing a blues club, so I was the first.

I never bought the commercial thing, at any stage of the game.

There is no black-and-white situation. It`s all part of life. Highs, lows, middles.

I understood jazz, I understood how it worked. That`s what I apply to everything.

Large audiences did not suit my low-key approach.

What you see is what you get.

Even today, skiffle is a defining part of my music. If I get the opportunity to just have a jam, skiffle is what I love to play.

I`d love to live in Ireland but I`d like to live as me, not what someone thinks I am. People don`t understand-I lived there before I was famous.

The first piece of music that captured my imagination was probably Ray Charles Live At Newport.

In order to win you must be prepared to lose sometime. And leave one or two cards showing.

Being famous was extremely disappointing for me. When I became famous it was a complete drag and it is still a complete drag.

You can`t stay the same. If you`re a musician and a singer, you have to change, that`s the way it works.

I`m not a rock singer and I don`t want to be a rock singer. I`m not interested. It doesn`t seem to get across.

There`s always got to be a struggle. What else is there? That`s what life is made of. I don`t know anything else. If there is, tell me about it.